


infinitus

by deliveryservice



Series: #tsukkibdayweek2020 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Childhood Friends, M/M, kei is head over heels for tadashi but make it hogwarts: the fic, mentions of others characters too because why not, they grow up together :")
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26587015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliveryservice/pseuds/deliveryservice
Summary: Ravenclaw prefect Tsukishima Kei's friendship with quiet Hufflepuff Yamaguchi Tadashi is one that surprises many; while Kei is sarcastic and acerbic, Tadashi has always shown himself to the masses to be a shy, but genuine little thing—and an exemplary example of a Hufflepuff—that it leaves heads reeling when they see the two on Hogwarts grounds together, duels and/or bullying uninvolved.Kei and Tadashi's bond through the years, because not even Hogwarts' house system is enough to tear them apart.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: #tsukkibdayweek2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933990
Comments: 6
Kudos: 186
Collections: TsukkiBdayWeek2020





	infinitus

**Author's Note:**

> for day three of tsukki bday week 2020, with the prompt *harry potter.* it's already the 22nd both in japan and where i'm at, so i figured i might as well post it while i can't sleep.

When the summer before his fifth year comes around, nobody in Kei’s household is surprised when he gets the letter naming him prefect.

“That’s my little brother!” Akiteru crows proudly, ruffling Kei’s hair the second the owl touches down on their family’s house. The Tsukishimas are a relatively well-off magical family, half-bloods as they are, residing in a quiet little neighbourhood just an hour-drive away from the city. None of their neighbors are magical, and the arrival of the occasional owl gets them several questions whenever they mingle with their muggle neighbors, but it has never been the cause of enough concern it’s gotten them to consider moving from their family home that’s even older than Kei himself.

“It might just be the list of supplies, you know,” Kei says, even if he knows the letter meant to send out the list of books and supplies he’s supposed to get for his next year isn’t due to come for another few weeks.

“Yeah, right.” Akiteru snorts, and Kei curses the fact that his brother had chosen to attend Hogwarts back when he was still in school, therefore knowing almost as well as Kei does about the school’s schedules; Akiteru could’ve chosen to live with their uncle and gone to Durmstrang, but  _ no _ , of course the both of them had to share the same alma mater.

Kei doesn’t read the letter in front of his entire family, choosing to bring it back to his quarters, but Akiteru reads him easily enough when Kei comes back down for dinner and announces the big news to their mother before Kei even manages to speak.

“Little Kei’s a prefect!” Akiteru cheers, and Kei’s mother beams; somehow, in the face of his mother’s clear happiness, even Kei can’t find himself to be as annoyed as he’d been at his brother for declaring the news before Kei does.

“Congratulations, Kei,” his mother says, and makes sure to put some extra pieces of fish into his dinner. Kei appreciates the notion, even though it hadn’t been necessary, because it’s not like Kei eats  _ much _ . “Have you told Tadashi?”

Kei shrugs. “I haven’t told anyone else.”

“You should. I think he’d be excited to hear about it,” she suggests, and Kei can’t bring himself to disagree. Yamaguchi  _ would _ be excited on his behalf—probably more excited than even Kei had been, at any rate, but somehow, the thought of it isn’t as annoying as Kei would’ve thought it’d be. “Our floo’s still connected to his family’s flat,” she points out.

Kei takes a quick sip from his pumpkin juice, and shrugs. Tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, but guessing by the odd glint in both his mother and Akiteru’s eyes, maybe it hadn’t worked as well as he’d been hoping for it to. “I guess I can visit after dinner.”

* * *

Yamaguchi’s reaction is exactly what Kei had expected.

“You’re prefect? Nice, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi gapes, holding the letter close to his face, eyes going back and forth between what’s written on it and Kei’s face. Like he’s in awe that his best friend made prefect, which isn’t even that big of a deal, but apparently, it is—at least, it is to Yamaguchi, and Kei can’t find the words to be snide about it because the look of admiration plastered on his best friend’s face is already too much for him to handle.

“It’s not a big deal,” he mumbles instead, taking the letter back once Yamaguchi’s done reading it for the fifth time. He’d read the letter out loud the first time, which was slightly mortifying, but Kei is nothing if not cool-headed.

“Maybe you don’t think it is, but it’s still amazing!” Yamaguchi insists, and looking into his friend’s star-struck gaze, Kei’s rejection promptly wilts on his tongue. “You know what this means?” he suddenly asks, eyes alight with mischief. The kind of mischief that has Kei wondering, sometimes, why Yamaguchi had made it into Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor.

“What?”

“You can threaten people with house points deductions now,” Yamaguchi says, and snickers.

Kei considers the idea.

Then he considers pulling it whenever the Idiot Duo does something headache-inducing, and decides that maybe being prefect wasn’t as boring as he thought it’d be.

Kei smiles one of his rarer, smaller smiles, and misses the way Yamaguchi freezes. “You know what? I think you have a point, Yamaguchi.”

* * *

The first time Tsukishima Kei meets Yamaguchi Tadashi, it’s actually before either of them get into Hogwarts. 

When others hear about this, it comes as a surprise: Kei comes from a bloodline of wizards, while Tadashi is a muggle-born. 

Although Kei’s family lives amongst muggles, they don’t tend to mingle all that much; even Akiteru knows the value of secrecy, and every good witch and wizard understands the dangers of nosy muggles. Still, the fact remains that Kei and Yamaguchi met years before either of them even received their Hogwarts letters, and their friendship starts completely unexpectedly—to both Kei  _ and _ Tadashi.

It starts like this:

Kei doesn’t often go outside the house to play. Like most other magical children his age, his preferred activities are those of the magical variety; for him, it’s playing quidditch with Akiteru, and the both of them often play in their house’s backyard, with enchantments cast upon the entire household to keep muggles from noticing anything out of the ordinary. He  _ would _ have stayed home to play quidditch (he’s getting very good at playing keeper for his age, Akiteru often says), except today Akiteru’s away with his friends for the Quidditch World Cup, and Kei doesn’t want to be stuck in the house when there’s nothing for him to do.

So to him, the solution is simple enough. Kei goes out, not intending to play with anyone, but his legs are itching for activity, and a walk around the neighbourhood never hurt anyone. His walk had been going well enough, and he’d been learning all the pathways that could lead to his house, when he’d stumbled upon a sight that made him stop in his tracks.

A gang of boys surrounding another boy, and Kei assumes they’re his age, because they  _ look _ like they are. They’re cornering him, he thinks, and while Kei can’t hear what they’re saying, noticing the way the other boy seems to cower is enough to give him some context. It’s even clearer when the boy hesitantly pulls out some money out of his pockets, handing them over to someone who looks like the ring-leader.

Kei hesitates for only a moment before he steps in. 

He might not be the type to save strangers like Akiteru would, but Kei’s been taught never to stand by when something wrong is happening. Kei Tsukishima is many things, but he has never been a bystander—and he’s not going to start now, not when the ‘threat’ is only a group of muggle children, all of whom are even  _ shorter _ than he is. 

“Picking on kids for lunch money?” Kei jeers, using his height to literally look down on them with a snide look. Akiteru says it just makes him look cute, but Kei has been  _ practicing _ . Either his practicing has paid off or Akiteru is just weird, because all the bullies blanch when they catch sight of Kei. “That’s lame.”

“W-Who even are you?!” one of them splutters, but Kei only turns around and ignores him; ignores the rest of them as they call after him, because he doesn’t care enough, and none of them have the courage to actually go after him, anyway.

Once he’s far enough away, he finds a spot to crouch down and look to see what the situation’s like now: He finds the boy who’d been bullied standing there alone, looking around fervently with his money clutched close to his chest.

Kei contemplates just leaving, but before he can, the boy, somehow, spots him; and then he’s running over to Kei, a little clumsy on his legs and nearly tripping over a branch or two but still persevering, and Kei’s forced to stay in place. Leaving now would just be rude, he figures.

“Thank you!” the boy cries, hastily bowing to Kei. Up close, Kei can see he has freckles marring his cheeks, and his first thought (one that he squashes out quickly) is  _ cute _ . “You di’n’t hafta do that!” Then he’s smiling at Kei, bashfully but brightly, showing off his two missing front teeth.

“No problem,” Kei mutters, a blush going up from his neck to his cheeks. “I’m going home now,” he says, stiffly, because he doesn’t interact with many other children his age and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be acting now. Or what he’s supposed to say. Kei doesn’t care if the boy thinks he’s weird—he can just say  _ you’re weird! _ back at him, because at least he’s not missing his front teeth—but it doesn’t help his lost confusion at all.

“But I dunno your name yet!” 

“…Kei. I’m Tsukishima Kei.”

“I’m Tadashi!” he says, sticking his hand out to Kei. Cautiously, Kei shakes it, wondering if he’d just made a friend. “Yamaguchi Tadashi! It’s nice ‘t meet you, Tsukki!”

He probably  _ had _ just made a friend. Kei hopes Akiteru will never hear about this.

* * *

“No way! You’re a wizard too, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks when they bump into each other at Platform 9 3/4 the September 1st of their first year, Yamaguchi’s parents looking awed and lost at the wonder that is magic while Kei’s own family watches at the background. Akiteru’s already boarded the train after he’d bumped into some of his friends, and Kei was in the middle of triple-checking his trunk when Yamaguchi caught sight of him, calling him over with a loud, head-turning shout of ‘TSUKKI!!!’.

“Yeah,” Kei says, pushing up his glasses. “I didn’t know you were one, too?”

“Oh, I just found out! I’m a… I’m a mug… what was the word again?”

“Muggle born?”

“Yeah! That!”

It’s not like Kei’d been worried about making friends in Hogwarts: He’s just never been the type to care much about what others might think, and he isn’t going to start  _ now _ , but to him, it’s still a relief knowing that at the very least, he already knows someone. Since their meeting several years ago, Yamaguchi has been a constant in Kei’s life, much to Akiteru’s non-stop teasing; Kei would be more annoyed by it if he didn’t actually enjoy Yamaguchi’s company.

Which, unfortunately, Kei did.

“Do you know how they’ll sort us into the houses, Tsukki?”

Kei shrugs. “Akiteru won’t tell me. He says it’ll ruin the tradition.” He rolls his eyes, because Kei doesn’t get what’s so important about keeping an old, stuffy tradition anyways—it’s definitely not because he’s feeling anxious over the sorting process, or anything. Akiteru had tried to scare him by saying they would have to fight rogue centaurs, but Kei’s pretty sure that would be breaking at least ten laws, and Hogwarts as an institution has been running around for far too long for the sorting process to be anything terrifying.

“Do you think we’ll have to fight monsters? Do monsters exist?!” Yamaguchi gasps.

“They’re called magical creatures, not monsters. There’s a class we could take later on called Care of Magical Creatures,” Kei recites from memory.

“You knew that?! Wow, you’re so cool, Tsukki!”

Kei looks away so that Yamaguchi doesn’t see him blush. “It’s nothing, Akiteru just kept talking about it so I knew that much.”

“Still, you already know so much more than I do!” Yamaguchi says, and leans slightly closer in his seat; his face is close to Kei’s, and Kei backs away, just so that their noses won’t bump. “What house do you think you’ll be sorted into?”

It’s a question Kei has thought about before. His mother had been a Slytherin, and Akiteru a Gryffindor; the Tsukishima family, although they’ve been around for generations already, tend to breed witches and wizards of different houses. There’s no sort of family expectation weighing him down at all as to what house he’ll be placed into (unlike Kageyama Tobio, another first-year hailing from a line of Slytherin purebloods), and sure, Kei’s grateful, but at the same time, Kei has his doubts that he’ll be sorted into the same house as his brother.

Or Yamaguchi.

“I think I might be in Ravenclaw. Or Slytherin,” Kei says, because that’s what his thinking has concluded him. “How about you?”

Yamaguchi furrows his brows and gnaws on his bottom lip, deep in thought. “I don’t know yet… I’ve read a bit of Hogwarts: A History, and I think I’m anything but a Gryffindor.”

Kei raises a brow. “Why do you say that?”

Yamaguchi laughs sheepishly, and runs his hand down his nape. “I don’t really know, but I just don’t think I stand for what their house’s looking for… I don’t think I’m very brave.”

Kei nearly says something like ‘that’s bullshit’, but he manages to catch his tongue just in time before it slipped. “If the hat thinks you’re a Gryffindor, then you’re a Gryffindor,” he says instead.

“But we don’t know yet what the hat’s going to sort us into..”

Kei shrugs. “That’s true, but we’ll see soon, won’t we?”

“I guess we will.” Yamaguchi pauses, and for a few minutes, he doesn’t talk at all, appearing to be in careful thought. “Tsukki, do you think we’ll still be friends, even if we’re in different houses?”

“I don’t see why not. House rivalry’s an outdated concept, anyway.”

A beat of silence, and then:

“You’re really cool, you know, Tsukki!”

* * *

They’re in different houses.

The hat had barely touched Kei’s head before it shouted ‘RAVENCLAW!’, and from the Ravenclaw table, he spies Yamaguchi’s anxious expression, looking like he might’ve even started pacing if it wouldn’t have garnered him so much attention for being the only first year to be moving around out of sheer nervousness. Yamaguchi’s name isn’t called until later, because his first name is Tadashi and that puts him somewhere amongst the last ones to get sorted, but the hat takes a while with him, to the point whispers have started drawing amongst the onlookers before the hat, finally, declares Yamaguchi to be a Hufflepuff.

It’s not quite sadness that Kei feels, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed.

* * *

Word spreads about their friendship, and it’s one that, on the surface, scratches people’s heads: Kei’s built a solid reputation for himself as a sarcastic, caustic Ravenclaw who wouldn’t even blink before giving someone a verbal beatdown if they deserved it, while Yamaguchi is, even Kei has heard from the gossip of his own housemates, a quiet Hufflepuff who’s prone to stuttering and other nervous tics. 

Yamaguchi even tells him, one day, that one of his housemates had checked up on him after seeing him spend his time after classes with Kei, just to check that Kei wasn’t bullying him rather than the simple explanation of them just being friends.

It’d be funny if it didn’t get annoying, considering the amount of ‘concern’ Yamaguchi draws from surrounding himself with Kei.

“They act like I’m a bad influence,” Kei grouches, one day, when the both of them don’t have any classes—it’s a Saturday—and they’ve decided to spend the day exploring Hogwarts’ grounds. They found a spot just by the Great Lake and they’re lying down next to each other, Kei’s eyes fixed squarely upon the cloudy September sky.

“Maybe you are,” Yamaguchi jests.

Kei scowls. “I’m the one making sure you get your homework done in time and  _ this _ is what I get in return?”

Yamaguchi snickers, and Kei has to wonder how no one else has seen past Yamaguchi’s timid surface. There’s a reason why the both of them get along so well, and Kei’s personality is not the type who’d stick around someone if they annoyed him at all. “Sorry, Tsukki.”

And then, after several moments of silence where the air’s only filled with the sound of the wind and the splashing of the water: “Do you think the rumors will ever stop?”

Kei snorts, and closes his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it follows us until our seventh year. Akiteru’s told me about Hogwarts’ infamous rumor mill before.”

Yamaguchi laughs: It’s a soft, quiet sound, and it’s the sort of laughter that Kei thinks he would’ve missed had he not been paying attention. “Does it bother you, though?”

Kei doesn’t even need to think about it before he answers. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

* * *

Their second year, Kei makes it into Ravenclaw’s quidditch team after his first try-out. It garners him whistles and side-eyes, because he’s the only one from his year who’d made it into the team. Kei ignores the dirty glances and false rumors, practices until the moon swallows the sun, and has calluses on his hands from the amount of time he has spent gripping his broom by the time his first official match of the season comes around.

“Good luck today, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi cheers; it garners him dirty glances from other Hufflepuffs in the vicinity, because the first match is Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff. 

With Yamaguchi’s enthusiastic support for Hufflepuff’s opponent, he might as well have been wearing a Ravenclaw-coloured scarf.

“I don’t think you should be saying this out loud,” Kei says dryly. If Yamaguchi gets jumped by the other Hufflepuffs later, let it be known that Kei doesn’t want any responsibility for it—just in case it actually  _ does _ happen later. Which Kei hopes doesn’t, but then again, with Hogwarts students you’re taught to always expect the unexpected.

Yamaguchi laughs, loud and carefree. “Who cares? I’ve been your friend much longer than I’ve been a Hufflepuff,” he says, careful to keep his voice low enough so that only Kei can hear him.

“Idiot,” Kei says, and can’t quite deny the fondness that swarms the three-syllable word.

* * *

“Did your mom sign your Hogsmeade form?” Yamaguchi asks Kei the night before they’re supposed to go back to Hogwarts for their third year; it follows last year’s routine of Yamaguchi staying over the night before the first of September, and coming along with Kei’s family to drive off to the station the next day. It’s like Yamaguchi is an honorary Tsukishima, by now, and Kei knows he’s not the only one who (privately) thinks that. Both his mother and Akiteru have grown to treat Yamaguchi like he’s part of the family, too, considering how often he’s around, and it makes Kei feel something warm in the center of his chest.

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking up from the book he’d been reading. It’s never too early to start looking over future material, even if it’s a habit that garners teasing from Yamaguchi because of how Ravenclaw that is of Kei. “Yours?”

Yamaguchi’s grin is bright as he nods, proudly showing off the signed form. “They did! There are so many places I want to visit,” he says, and shifts closer to Kei so that their shoulders are touching, “I really want to try some butterbeer! And there’s also the jokes shop, though I don’t even know who I’d prank.”

“We’ll go wherever you want.”

“Isn’t there somewhere you want to check out, though, Tsukki?”

Kei considers the question for a moment: He’d heard about Hogsmeade from both Akiteru’s letters and the gossip of the Ravenclaw upper years, but there’s nothing that interests him. Kei’d only asked his mother to sign the form because he knew Yamaguchi would be going, too: If Yamaguchi wasn’t a factor, Kei doubts he would’ve cared about going to Hogsmeade at all. 

“Not really,” he says, and tries not to sound too nonchalant. “I’m only going to Hogsmeade for you, anyway.”

For some reason, this makes Yamaguchi blush, and his cheeks turn as red as Kei’s hands do whenever he’s been gripping his broom for hours’ end during Quidditch practice. Kei doesn’t know if it was something he’d said, but he decides that, he at least knows this much: He likes seeing that look on Yamaguchi’s face, and he’d consider it his own personal win whenever he succeeds in being the one to put that expression on him.

“Hey, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi’s voice is more quiet than it usually is, a muted volume Kei notices he reserves for almost anyone who  _ isn’t  _ Kei. It makes him frown that the tone’s directed at him, now, but it’s not like he’s upset. “Have you, um, have you had your first kiss yet?”

The question comes so out of nowhere that Kei’s taken aback, rapidly blinking to make sure he’d really just been asked that by Yamaguchi, of all people. It’s not like the question itself is an odd topic in itself—others in their year have started talking about romance and things like kissing, and Kei’s gotten his fair share of confessions throughout the latter half of his second year (he remembers getting a Valentine’s card, and he also remembers wrinkling his nose in distaste because it’d been more of a nuisance than anything). It’s more like he’s surprised Yamaguchi is asking that to him, of all people, when Kei had assumed Yamaguchi didn’t think of such things like most of the others did in their year. The subject never came up between the two of them, after all, aside from some light teasing from Yamaguchi when Kei had gotten his Valentines.

“Um, no,” Kei answers, after a beat of silence. “I think I would’ve told you if I had,” he adds, bemused. 

“Yeah! You’re right.” Yamaguchi laughs, and the sound is so forced that Kei almost cringes. “Sorry, that was a really stupid thing of me to ask.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Kei mutters. “I don’t know why you asked that, though.”

“Oh! Well, um...” Yamaguchi flusters, and Kei’s beginning to get worried over his well-being. Had he eaten something odd that day? “Why don’t we have our first kisses with each other?”

Kei must’ve been staring incredulously, because Yamaguchi’s quick to sputter, “Not snogging or anything! Just a peck! But it’s totally okay if you don’t want to Tsukki oh Merlin I probably shouldn’t have said anything—”

“Okay,” Kei finds himself saying, his mouth dry. Unconsciously, his tongue darts out of his mouth to swipe over his lower lip, and Yamaguchi’s eyes track his movements. “Just to... get it out of the way and everything.”

“Yeah, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi nods, and his head’s moving so fast that it leaves Kei fretting if his head’s going to detach from his neck. “So nobody can tease us for not having them yet, too!”

Kei softens at that. He knows Yamaguchi hasn’t been struggling with bullies—at least, he’d never struggled with them in Hogwarts—but some things must’ve carried through from when he  _ was _ constantly bullied. “Alright,” he agrees. “Close your eyes.”

“Huh?”

“I said, close your eyes,” Kei repeats.

Hesitantly, Yamaguchi’s lids drop and his eyes close. There’s a second that leaves Kei wondering if they’re really going to do this—if they’re really about to kiss right now—but then there’s also a part of him, one that’s more Gryffindor than Ravenclaw, that decides there’s no harm done: It’s just a kiss, nothing more, and in some other parts of Europe, people greet each other by kisses all the time, right? It’s not a big deal, he repeats to himself, and throws all caution to the wind when he slowly, carefully, meets Yamaguchi’s lips with his.

The kiss is quick and shy, and it lasts barely more than several seconds; in those few seconds, though, Kei finds out that Yamaguchi’s lips are dry and slightly chapped, but it’s not a  _ bad _ feeling to kiss him. In fact, his lips are warm and nice underneath Kei’s, and that’s behind Kei’s reasoning when he leans in to press another kiss on Yamaguchi’s lips just moments after he’d first leaned away, slightly firmer and lingering just a little longer this time around.

“How was that?” Kei asks after their second kiss, his voice hoarse enough that he clears his throat right after he speaks. 

Yamaguchi opens his eyes slowly, and he rubs at them once, like he’d woken up from a nap and he can’t discern what’s real and what isn’t, not yet. “Nice, Tsukki,” he says, softly, and Kei’s face is softened with a rare, tender smile. “Do you... think we could do it again?”

Kei surprises even himself with his chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely do it again.”

* * *

In their fifth year, somehow Tadashi—he’d insisted on Kei calling him with his first name after the experimental first kisses had turned into occasional kisses, that had then, somehow, evolved into them being boyfriends—had managed to befriend the Trouble Duo from Gryffindor, Tanaka and Noya. Kei doesn’t really know how that happened, and he’s not sure if he even wants to know. All he knows, however, is that the two somehow managed to sneak back some firewhiskey from their last Hogsmeade trip, and Tadashi managed to get his hands on one bottle. One bottle that the both of them are sharing in an empty, unused classroom, tucked into a corner no Hogwarts students barely ever passes through.

“I still can’t believe you got your hands on some firewhiskey,” Kei says flipping the bottle around in his hands to make sure it  _ really _ is some firewhiskey instead of something the Trouble Duo had brewed in potions class as a sick idea of a prank. “You’re  _ sure _ this isn’t something from Zonko’s?”

“Stop being so paranoid, Tsukki,” Tadashi says, and twists the cap open once he manages to wrangle the bottle off Kei. Even after they’ve started dating, the nickname’s stuck, and Kei finds out Tadashi still prefers calling him Tsukki over Kei—most of the time, anyway. “They wouldn’t do something like that.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re not the one dealing with taking away their house points every two weeks,” Kei grumbles.

Tadashi takes the first sip of the bottle, and promptly splutters. Kei’s quick reflexes has him shooting an aguamenti into a goblet he’d wisely brought with him, and he’s pushing the water at Tadashi’s lips, only to have the goblet pushed away weakly. “It’s okay,” Tadashi manages to say through his coughs, and Kei begins patting his back. He doesn’t know if it helps, but that’s what he sees people do in muggle movies. “I’m okay, it just really burns.”

“It’s not even that bad,” Kei mutters, and takes a swig from himself to see what the big deal’s all about.

Tadashi laughs at him, when Kei starts coughing too, but at least they’re suffering through this together. Kei can’t even bring himself to be mad at Tadashi when he’s laughing so freely, cheeks split so widely that his grin’s large and bright enough to rival the rays of the sun. “Not even that bad, Tsukki?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

“Come on, Tsukishima, that was the  _ third _ time you’ve deducted house points from Gryffindor this week!” Hinata complains after Kei takes away several house points from Gryffindor after him and Kageyama disturbed their entire class by their loud bickering over Quidditch ( _ honestly _ ), earning the both of them bemused looks from the rest of their class. 

“Stop giving me reasons to deduct points from Gryffindor, then,” Kei retorts, and thoroughly enjoys the way Hinata begins spluttering nonsense with frustration. Being a little shit is fun.

“How are you even friends with Yamaguchi?!” Hinata exclaims, and Kei doesn’t even blink before correcting Hinata with a muttered ‘boyfriends.’ “Wait, you’re dating?”

“Have been since third year.”

“How come I’ve never noticed?”

“That’s because you don’t pay attention to anything outside Quidditch.”

“Not true! I totally pay attention to other things, like—like broom models!”

“...That still falls under the Quidditch umbrella, Hinata.”

* * *

Right after the sorting ceremony, in their first year, just before the prefects have gathered everyone to lead them to their respective common rooms, Yamaguchi finds his way to the Ravenclaw table, looking nervous and too small underneath his yellow Hufflepuff robes. 

He even manages to ignore (more like duck his head and pointedly look away, but it’s still  _ something _ ) the odd stares thrown his way from some of Kei’s housemates—most of the other first-years and some second-years, Kei figures, that leaves him wanting to say something about how they must’ve never seen an example of inter-house friendships before.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi starts, and his voice is quiet, almost hesitant. It reminds Kei of the person he’d been all those years ago, when they’d first met and Kei had just scared off the other kids taunting him. He hates it. “Are we... are we still going to be friends?”

Kei snorts. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

He must’ve said something right (and isn’t that weird? Anyone else would’ve called him out for being an asshole for saying something like that instead of being comforting, but Yamaguchi is Yamaguchi, and Kei is always grateful for it), because Yamaguchi’s face lights up like Christmas had come early this year. 

“So we  _ are _ going to still be friends?” 

“The answer’s obvious, isn’t it?” Kei remarks, raising his brows in a manner that could almost be called kind. As kind as Kei can get, anyway.

Yamaguchi smiles at him, and it leaves Kei wondering what he’d ever doe to deserve someone like Yamaguchi in his life. His thoughts don’t get  _ too _ sappy very often, especially when it comes to most people, but it appears to be a recurring theme that Yamaguchi is a constant exception. 

“Thank you, Tsukki.”

“For what?”

“For wanting to still be my friend.”  _ For everything. _

Kei sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose with a wry grin. “You were always going to be my friend no matter what house you ended up in.”

And Kei doesn’t say these things out loud very often, because they’re often cheesy and cringey and they’re definitely not cool, but (even though he doesn’t need them) he knows sometimes, people may need verbal reassurance to make sure they know things  _ are _ fine. Just because they’re in different houses doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world as they know it.

“Really?” Yamaguchi whispers, as if the statement Kei had just made meant more to him than anything.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean. But  _ don’t _ make me repeat that.”

They might be in different houses, but it’s not like they couldn’t make it work. They’re alright; they’re fine.

They are going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it! come talk to me on [twt](https://twitter.com/jinorrah) if you'd like :]


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